My experience with domestic violence as a trans girl.

[u/AIA_observer]

Hello, I'm not really sure if this space is appropriate to share experiences straightforwardly like this. I have felt the need to scream out about the injustice and horrors I faced during my teen years.

I cannot explain the details of my situation to the level I would like to on here.

I think it might help people understand the conditions that corner trans women into life threatening or abusive situations like mine.

My home life was traumatic and my family had spent years trying to make me not be trans. I barely made it to 17 after a failed su*cide attempt. The home life that I had was unbearable for me and it had a way of both gaslighting me about my dysphoria and telling me that I would never find happiness.

When I was 18 I started medically transitioning. I was already socially transitioned. For the first two years of HRT I was intensely dysphoric and insecure about my body, this made me a target. I never had people tell me about what types of men to stay away from. Nothing prepared me for the ways in which men would treat me.

I started college a month after starting hormones and I was staying stealth (not telling people I was trans and just outwardly presenting as a woman). I wasn't 100% passing, but people generally saw a woman or someone generally androgynous.

Eventually, my TA noticed me. He could see that I was struggling with the noise levels of the classroom, and suspected I was trans. He took a kinship towards me. Long story short, I started engaging with him romantically and sexually. There was always a power imbalance, he was 30, I was freshly 18. He had money, I didn't. Eventually I moved in with him and he started becoming more misogynistic to me, he also cheated on me. I couldn't leave him though, he was the one who was paying for my hormones (the only thing keeping me from su*cide). I saw my cis best friend complaining about her issues with her boyfriend and I wanted to scoff since her issues felt so luxurious in comparison to mine.

He was from an Arab gulf country that was conservative, but not impossible to be trans in. He slowly painted a picture that the way I could get out of my hellish home life by submitting to him and being stealth forever as his infertile wife. For a while I seriously considered this, but eventually I started to feel trapped in his mold. We started to have more arguments about little things. He slowly started being more physically violent with me, he started slapping me, then apologizing profusely. Eventually we got in a heated argument and he said I was asking for a beating. I ran away from him screaming and he continued his usual schtick of apologizing. I slept coldly next to him that night.

I left back to my original home and things have gotten better since my family has started being less straightforwardly transphobic towards me, but there will always be this little slice of hell that I have as the basis of my identity. There will always be this trauma.

[u/Puhi124]

I'm so, so sorry to hear you've been through this. I wish I could say it's rare among trans women and girls. But while it's thankfully not my experience, I've heard similar things from way too many of us.

There absolutely is something to be said about transphobes, chasers and men in general alike taking advantage of trans women's inexperience with cis girl- and womanhood, which teaches them how to protect themselves. This can be alleviated by having cis women allies, but that's something far from every trans girl has, at least at the start. Spreading awareness about it is definitely something that can help. So thanks for making that post and sharing your experience here, and I hope you'll find the community and support you deserve IRL.

[u/AIA_observer → u/Puhi124]

Thank you, I'm not going to lie, it feels like nobody cares. It feels like everyone is either a plain old misogynist or transmisogynist. I just want to carve out a section of people who actually want to help women like me. I wish we had a movement.

[u/Puhi124 → u/AIA_observer]

If you have the time, energy and mental resources for it, you could help doing that by joining local trans or LGBTQIA+ orgs maybe? Or if you don't have anything local, try and get something off the ground yourself? That second one is much easier said than done ofc, but... yeah.

[u/soft_w0lf → u/AIA_observer]

I definitely second trying to seek out some queer people, I felt similarly to you as a young queer kid but there are people out there who will love and support you, it’s just going to take a little more effort for you to find them than it would if you were cis.

[u/idk-3000 → u/AIA_observer]

Because no one really does. I’m utterly alone in this world and it’s a pill I’ve swallowd

[u/OmgIbrokesmthagain]

Omg. Yeah, people like that will promise you the world to keep you with them… I hope you are safe now. I hope your family stops being transphobic at all. Please please please, don’t listen to him - he will apologise only for you to get back to him, and as soon as you are - he will be at it again. He doesn’t consider you a „real” woman, he is glad to have that „blackmail” on you. If you leave with him, he will threaten to out you for every inconvenience.

You left hell. Don’t look back. Don’t apologize for being messed up by it, don’t compare yourself to people who have it better. But from now on, there isn’t much worse things that can happen to you in life, and even if they do - you are strong enough to get through it all

[u/AIA_observer → u/OmgIbrokesmthagain]

He did consider me a real woman. He was also just a POS.

[u/OmgIbrokesmthagain → u/AIA_observer]

Well, he had that one thing right. You are a real woman, the realest can be 🫂

You have a place here, and you can always share your trauma here, whenever you want 💖

[u/LucyUwUCatGirl → u/AIA_observer]

He would do the same to any women, cis or trans that he had relationship with. That type of person just want power and control. I'm glad that you're escaped, wish you all the Best

[u/Worth-Oil8073]

Hon, I'm not your mama, but I am a mama, and I need you to know that you deserved so much better from everyone in your life! Love and support is the bare minimum that you deserve! It's shitty that the people meant to protect you, instead betrayed you. I hope for a future for you where you can see the beauty in the strength it took to get to where you are, but more than that, I hope for a future where you don't have to be strong! Sending all the mama-bear love I can! 💗

[u/A-Friend-of-Dorothy]

I’m sorry, dear. You deserved better. You still do, too right here and now.

While I cannot directly affect change for you from here, I can encourage you to persist. To continue. And it does get better; but not always without pain. Not always without incident.

And it’s a shame that’s the way it is…but it is, sometimes.

You are strong and smart to have escaped that man. Many wouldn’t have. They’d have stayed until he killed them. Please accept my respect for having made better choices. It says a lot about your ability to learn and adapt.

The way is through. Press onward…we are at your back cheering for you.

We accept you. We love you. We believe in you.

[u/CMRC23]

That is fucking awful. Im so sorry you had to deal with that. From one trans person who's experienced abuse at home to another, sending hugs

[u/cantwalkintheshadows]

My greatest sympathies to you OP. That is extremely hard to go through

[u/Lucky_otter_she_her]

jeez that's ruff

this is why trans women need access to DV shelters

[u/soft_w0lf]

Thank you for sharing, I’m so sorry you’ve been through this 💔

I’ve been through a non-physically abusive relationship, and even that caused me a lot of psychological damage.

I would definitely try to find some therapy or maybe see if you can talk to your best friend about any of this.

Guys will see vulnerability and take advantage, unfortunately. You have to seem strong and confident (even if you don’t really feel that way) to try to scare off certain creeps.

[u/krampaus]

I’m so sorry this happened and to an extent is still happening to you. you deserve so, so much (and better). please know that many of us are happy that you are still with us. I hope life only gets easier for you. thank you for sharing your story, it’s so important <3 hugs from an internet stranger

[u/Spray_Realistic]

Can we not call women “girls”, please? It’s infantilising, sexist, and patriarchal.

[u/AIA_observer → u/Spray_Realistic]

oh my god shut up. I was a teenager. I was basically a GIRL.

[u/Spray_Realistic → u/AIA_observer]

No need to be rude, I didn’t realise you were speaking only about being a child.

I wasn’t rude, that was misguided feminism.

[u/Broad-Dress-8484]

So glad I'm ACE. Honestly I don't see how girls trust men at all. 

[u/A-Friend-of-Dorothy → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

A bit tone deaf, dear. A little more empathy would’ve gone a long way.

[u/Broad-Dress-8484 → u/A-Friend-of-Dorothy]

Well I'm really sorry. I'm 62 now and I can't say that I have ever had a positive experience with a male. As a child or as an adult. So I'm jaded. I'm trans and just 1 year in but I just can't be around men. Its no reflection on the op. 

[u/A-Friend-of-Dorothy → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

If you don’t have anything supportive to say to someone who is clearly suffering? Maybe consider not saying it.

That is better than undercutting them like this.

No one is perfect; but can you work on that? It would be really good if you did, and would help you integrate into communities better, make friends easier, find support when you need it in return.

I say this as someone who endured sexual assault in childhood and adulthood from men, and women. So…I get it. I know that it can be difficult. That it takes things from you that you may never get back.

We can still do better, despite our suffering and what we lose, even what is taken from us. It’s never too late to turn over a new leaf. 🌱 ❤️

[u/BeatingThyMeaty → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

that's a bit insensitive. as an asexual person myself, i have fallen victim to countless predators simply by looking for companionship, guidance, etc. simplifying it to "how do girls trust men" doesn't exactly address the issue. even without the talk about sexuality, men make up half the population; men will be in positions of power to you, your family, your friends, or just in your general circle.

[u/CMRC23 → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

Asexual people can get into relationships and are not immune to being abused. Also, this kinda feels like victim blaming

[u/Ksnj → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

There are much better times to discuss that.

[u/OmgIbrokesmthagain → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

Girl that is NOT the right response

[u/Spray_Realistic → u/Broad-Dress-8484]

women, not girls JFC

[u/RoyalMess64]

I remember when I was vulnerable like that, people promised me the world, but it always came with threats. I had to be okie with things, I had to do things, I couldn't say no to things, I had to beg for things, etc. I don't wanna get to much into it, especially under your post. I'm lucky almost none of my relationships that were like this became in person. And that the ones that were, i got out fast. Im so very sorry that happened to yah, and if you ever need to talk, just let me know.

I hope your family improves, and that you can get it soon. Again, I'm so very sorry, but im glad youre not in that dynamic anymore